What are the essentials needed in a query letter? These query letter must-haves are the most important pieces a query letter needs. Tips for Query Letter Must-Haves In the course of my work (as an agent, as an acquisitions editor, now as a publishing consultant, I have found that writers often overlook a few important…
A book editor needs to get comfortable making editorial decisions in a copyedit. Don’t shift the editorial burden back to the author. Copyediting requires decision-making Obviously, we can’t ask the author to make decisions about every question we have when we’re editing. This is inefficient as it takes time to ask the question and get…
One of a book editor’s services is editing for timeline consistency, a common developmental concern. Here are some tips for tracking story timelines! Problems with Editing for Timeline Consistency A common developmental concern is a problem or error in the timeline of a story. Usually the copy editor is expected to track the timeline very…
Do you struggle with not taking rejection personally? Let me share some thoughts… An online writers’ group I belong to recently had a discussion about saying no – how to do it, how to mean it, how to deal with people who try to negotiate after you’ve already said no, and so on. That got me…
What is line editing from a character’s viewpoint? A line editor has to learn to look at what is happening in a scene from the viewpoint character’s perspective in order to catch errors in how the story is conveyed. Here’s an example. Lois, the narrator (“I”), is hiding in a bathroom at an urgent care…
Need ideas for additional services for a book editing business? Freelance editors often want to expand their services to meet client needs or just to add some variety to their day. I sympathize completely! I started out as a copy editor and while I enjoyed applying a specific style guide consistently across 80,000 words, it…
Are you dealing with creative burnout? I know the feeling and have some thoughts to share. A writer sent me an email saying she felt creatively drained. She said, “My book is good. How can I convince others?” Reading between the lines, I figured she’d written a book she felt was excellent but agents/editors were…
Knowing the different types of editing will help you understand how they can often be fused together in a freelance editor’s project. The 3 Different Types of Editing Developmental editing (abbreviated DE or dev) looks at the big-picture concerns of a manuscript (ms). For nonfiction, we would ask: Is the structure logical? Is the argument…
Writers need to know how to grab readers’ attention, and I have a few thoughts on this. Give your novel its best shot. Few readers will read beyond ten or fifteen pages if a novel doesn’t engage them. Agents and editors—even if interested in the manuscript—almost never go beyond thirty or forty pages before finding…
Have you used the “here’s how I would write it” editorial query? In making editorial suggestions, editors sometimes drift into “here’s how I would write it” territory, which is something I discourage. Authors don’t care what you would have done. They want to learn what they can do that will make their manuscript better. What…